Chat With The Chief: Public Safety Center

The City of Tulsa announced it has officially acquired the old State Farm Building for the new Public Safety Center for Tulsa Police and Fire. That's just one of the topics News On 6's LeAnne Taylor spoke with TPD Chief Dennis Larson about in this month's Chat with the Chief.

LeAnne: It was a big day yesterday for police and fire. Share with us about what having this center means to your department.

Larson: Well, it means that we are going to jump from a 1960s building that had all the challenges of a 1960s building. It wasn't wired for computers, it didn't have the ability to adapt technology, and we have maintained such a high clearance rate in our serious crimes because of leverage in technology. We're moving into a building that was built by a corporation that is made to expand and adapt as technology evolves.

So, it's going to be a huge leap forward. Our real-time information center that we set up about two years ago has now recovered over $3.2 million of stolen property and returned it to the citizens of Tulsa. That just shows you a glimpse of what you can do when you leverage technology. You put it to highly intelligent investigators, which our homicide rate is kind of tracking where it has the last year. We're going to end up somewhere in the low to mid-50s.

But the important thing is that 100% solve rate we like to brag about. We're currently investigating the 44th I am told that by our investigators we will get there on that one. I am looking forward to January one, because there's no other major city in the United States that can say they have solved every homicide that occurred within their jurisdiction.

We have an exceptional group of investigators, but part of the key to everything they do, not just in homicide and robberies and investigation of gun crimes, investigation sexual assaults, is being leveraged with technology to make our investigators even better. State Farm building brings that to the plate. It already highly has technological advances inside of it as the day we move in, that we don't have to recreate and do again. It's going to be almost like a plug-and-play environment, which our investigators are excited about.

LeAnne: I heard Fire Chief Baker mention that having you all in one property, the communication will just be effortless.

Larson: It will be and that's the other thing. Having the fire department and our Records Bureau and all the things that we want to do for the public. We will have a meeting room where we can invite the public in, and it will be a large meeting room where we can come in and hold different types of conferences and say, if you want to talk about this crime or this stuff, whatever is happening in your neighborhood, well, let's bring the whole neighborhood in and sit down with your police and your fire and talk about things and how we police in the future and make it better.

LeAnne: We made it through the elections. When I voted early, had sheriff deputies around, barricades around. How did it go from the police department's perspective, in terms of weather and safety?

Larson: Everybody talks about the Oklahoma Standard and the Tulsa standard. I got up that morning at about 5:30, started driving the different precincts, and saw the lines forming. Throughout the day, I walked through precincts. Kind, patient. Everybody was in a good mood.

I saw two gentlemen helping a lady who was standing in line and needed to sit down. They went and found her chair and moved it every five minutes while she was sitting in line. That's not just the Oklahoma Standard, but the Tulsa standard. They were patient, they were kind, and they were considerate of everyone. There was not one problem that I'd been made aware of in the entire day.

LeAnne: We have a new mayor that will be sworn in December. Have you met with Monroe Nichols? What does that layout look like for police and fire and getting with him and kind of looking for next year?

Larson: Well, the only person I know schedule-wise that has a worse schedule than the Chief of Police, is the mayor of the City of Tulsa. I always cringe when I look at how many things I have to do in any given week, but I know the mayor's office does twice what I do. So I've spoken with mayor-elect Monroe Nichols, but I have not met with him in person. That will come in the next couple of days. I'm sure, if it's like the day I was named police chief, and like the day Mayor Bynum was elected, his phone blew up.

I tried to leave him a couple of voicemails early at the end of the election, Getting cut off, which told me his voicemail box was full. So he has got a big learning curve, and a lot of it is not even related to public safety. He's the type of personality, from what I'm told, that will hit the ground running. So I look forward to meeting with him in the next few days and give him a status update on the Public Safety Center, give him a status update of what we're doing all over Tulsa to make the city safe.

LeAnne: That new center, end of next year is that the goal for moving in?

Larson: We'll be building it out over the next 12 months, but our goal is to be in it by Jan. 1, 2026.